Going There: Aida and Hebron

Today, we visited Aida Refugee Camp and Hebron in the West Bank. Our own words cannot possibly describe all we have seen and heard, so we share with you several photographs because a picture is worth a thousand words. But first, a poem by R.S. Thomas, which articulates both the suffering and the grace we have witnessed.

 

The Coming
by R. S. Thomas

 

And God held in his hand

A small globe. Look he said.

The son looked. Far off,

As through water, he saw

A scorched land of fierce

Colour. The light burned

There; crusted buildings

Cast their shadows: a bright

Serpent, A river

Uncoiled itself, radiant

With slime. On a bare

Hill a bare tree saddened

The sky. many People

Held out their thin arms

To it, as though waiting

For a vanished April

To return to its crossed

Boughs. The son watched

Them. Let me go there, he said.
Aida Refugee Camp

Entrance to Aida

by Paulina Muratore

 A wall in Aida listing refugees' home villages.

by Paulina Muratore

Our lunch hosts at the Lajee Center in Aida.

by Paulina Muratore

 The Wall, sometimes called the Apartheid Wall, sometimes called The Fence.

by Paulina Muratore 

Children in Aida.

by Paulina Muratore

 

Ibrihimi Mosque

The beautiful room for prayer.

by MacLean Cadman

Several of us prepared for entering the room for prayer.

by MacLean Cadman

The 1,600 year old minbar, where the imam stands to deliver sermons.

by Paulina Muratore

Sarah's Tomb

by Paulina Muratore

Meeting Israeli Soldiers

At the checkpoint near the Ibrihimi Mosque.

by MacLean Cadman

Getting a little exercise!

by MacLean Cadman

Soldiers at our last checkpoint leaving Hebron.

by MacLean Cadman